Fraud alert from the commish

Georgia Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire John King sent a bulletin to all Georgia pharmacies: Be on the lookout for fraudulent audit notices purporting to come from “Express Scripts” or “CVS Caremark.”

Pharmacies operating in Georgia, particularly independent pharmacies, who receive audit notices should verify that those audit notices are authentic.

Read the bulletin here.

What else can Ozempic do?

For every story about the bad side effects of semaglutide — “Ozempic face,” anyone? — there seems to be one about the unexpected good side. The latest: Anecdotal evidence (i.e., anecdotes) suggest that it might help with addictive behavior, as “People taking Ozempic for weight loss say they have also stopped drinking, smoking, shopping, and even nail biting.”

As one woman put it:

[S]he walked out of Target one day and realized her cart contained only the four things she came to buy. “I’ve never done that before,” she said. […] For the first time — perhaps the first time in her whole life — all of her cravings and impulses were gone. It was like a switch had flipped in her brain.

It’s possible — and, of course, more research is needed — that GLP-1 agonists “ may alter the brain’s fundamental reward circuitry” and be able to fight addiction in a broad sense. In fact, clinical trials are already underway.

Speaking of semaglutide …

Adding another block to its blockbuster, Novo Nordisk says the oral version of semaglutide it’s been testing works just like its injectable brother to help people lose weight.

In the study, which enrolled nearly 700 adults classified as having overweight or obesity, patients treated with a daily semaglutide tablet lost 15.1% of their body weight over the course of 17 months, while those on placebo lost 2.4%.

It plans to file for FDA and EU approval later this year.

Vote early, vote … well, vote once

GPhA members: This coming Thursday, May 25, you’ll be receiving your board-election ballot from AssociationVoting. (In other words, look for a message from that address, not gpha.org.)

Board voting runs from May 25 to Thursday, June 15 at 11:59:59 pm.

The results will be announced at the blockbuster general session at the Georgia Pharmacy Convention.

Ketamine questions continue

Could ketamine help depression just via the placebo effect? Maybe so, although the study that found this hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, and it uses ketamine in a different way.

What that means: A Stanford University study gave ketamine to patients with depression, but they did it while they were under general anesthesia (the patients, not the researchers) so patients wouldn’t know whether the got the drug or just saline.

Unlike in other trials, the ketamine didn’t do any better than a placebo. What’s up?

The authors interpret this as evidence that ketamine’s effects on depression are strongly tied to a patient’s experience of being seen by medical professionals.

BUT … other researchers say that, by having it under anesthesia, the patients didn’t experience ketamine’s psychedelic effects — and that could be a big part of why it works: “The dissociative effects of ketamine have been linked to a stronger antidepressant response, possibly by helping patients reframe their experience from an outside perspective.”

The jury remains out, although it does imply that it’s not ketamine alone that helps.

Old drug, new acne fighter

Women with persistent acne can safely use spironolactone to treat it, finds a new study out of Britain.

When topical treatments don’t work, antibiotics are often the next in line — but then there’s that whole issue of fostering antibiotic resistance. Some practitioners have prescribed spironolactone off-label, but there hadn’t been a definitive study on whether it was safe and effective.

Until now.

The Brits ran a trial with more than 400 patients over 24 weeks and … bingo. The fluid-buildup drug did a number on the women’s acne.

“The results showed that the women taking spironolactone saw a significant improvement in their acne after 12 and 24 weeks compared to those on the placebo. […] and any side effects were uncommon and very minor.”

Every year we get this reminder

About 20% of people in the US over 65 skip medications because they can’t afford them, according to a nationwide poll led by Nashville’s Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. That’s up from about 14% in 2016.

More than 8% of respondents said they went without basic needs — like gas and groceries — to afford their medication, while 4.8% of respondents said they went into debt to get their medication.

The Long Read: Curing hep C

Egypt screwed up 30 years ago and used contaminated needles to give vaccinations to children, resulting in the country having the world’s highest incidence of hepatitis C.

And then it cured the entire country — Egypt eliminated hep C in less than a year. Read how.

Short Takes

Lilly returns to Twitter

After pulling its advertising from Twitter in November — after a debacle where someone spoofed its account and caused a massive headache — Eli Lilly says it’s back buying ads on the platform … using a new handle, @EliLillyandCo.

Don’t skip leg day

Tell your patients with heart issues that “People with strong legs are less likely to develop heart failure after a heart attack,” according to a new study out of Japan.

Specifically, they should work on their quadriceps because “Compared with low quadriceps strength, a high strength level was associated with a 41% lower risk of developing heart failure.”